Oh dear I really have set myself off on a trip down memory lane!! Recently a doctor called me "very old school" I think it was meant as a complement but unsurprisingly I was horrified but to be fair when I look back so many things have changed so.... so you know your old school when you remember......
Metal bed pans that had to be washed in the bedpan washer. Kind nurses used to warm them with hot water as they were freezing cold and would have patients hopping off the bed :)
Female nurses only being allowed to wear dresses and hats. The number of stripes on your hat indicated how long you had been training and when qualified you got a cotton one with lace trim. Evil things they were you used to spend half your life pinning them back as confused patients knocked them off
Unless you were married you had to live in the nurses home whilst training. Lights were meant to be out by 11pm and the house mother used to do spot checks on the rooms to make sure no men were hidden away!!!!:redbeathe Once a month an army bus used to come and pick all the student nurses up and take them back to the barracks were 300 army boys were waiting for a free disco, free food, free drink and far to much free love :)
We were not allowed to tell patients our first name and were called Student Nurse Smith. When a patient died we would dress them in a shroud, put a flower in their folded hands and then they would e wrapped in a sheet. A window would be left open to allow their soul to leave. They would go off to Rose Cottage, never called the mortuary. The nurse in charge would always say "there be 2 more before the week's out" as in those days people only ever died in threes!!!!
The wards were long open plan called Nightingale wards. 15 patients down each side. We had a back trolley and every two hours would work our way up and down the ward turning and cahnging every patient. We used to rub something onto pressure areas but I can't remember what it was. If you had lots of dependent patients then it was like painting the forth bridge - as soon as you had finished it was time to go round again!!! At Christmas a huge tree would be delivered and we would decorate the beds with tinsel - wouldn't be allowed today becuase of infection risks.
Consultant ward rounds were like a royal visit. They occured at the same time on set days. The Consultant would only talk with the Sister and you were expected to have every pt in bed, sheet folded to middle of the chest looking tidy!!!!! Never figured out how to make a pt look tidy.
Getting your silver nurses buckle was like a right of passage. As soon as you got your results from your final exams the whole set headed off to the only jewellers that stocked buckles and chose their badge. I still wear mine but it's fair to say the belt is notably bigger
Male nurses and female doctors were rare. Now in my department we have more male nurses than female definitely a change for the better.
We took temperatures with a glass mercury filled thermometer covered in a disposable plastic cover and BP's were taken with a manual syphg and stethescope.
I am sure there are more but please other old school nurses share your memories with me :)
LVNs/LPNs working in ICU/CCU (I was one of them and it was my first job fresh out of school).
Post MI patients were not allowed ice or coffee.
Running "strips" on monitored cardiac patients in CCU and interpreting them manually. We measured the P, QRS, and T waves, looked for abnormalities, etc. and then documented them in the chart.
Taking patient's pulse manually, same with BP.
Not having to wear a nurse's cap while working in ICU. If you worked on the floor you had to wear it. Wearing all white (uniform, hose, shoes).
Metal bedpans and emesis basins. Peri lights, hand crank beds even in ICU/CCU.
Emptying foleys into a metal pitcher which had measurements on it.
All IVs were in glass bottles. We use to take the empty ones home and put plants in them (I think they were called terrariums - it's been so long!)
No IV pumps on the floor. All IVs had to be timed manually. ICU did have some pumps depending on the drug but they were few and far between.
Having to give patients a surgical prep the night before (enemas, shave surgical site, etc.)
Most surgical patients received their pre-op injection (Demerol, Vistaril and Atropine - all in one syringe) on the floor by the nurse.
Patients were checked into the hospital for tests and would be there for multiple days.
Developing a ganglion cyst on the wrist from having to shake down so many mercury thermometers!
The charge nurse would make rounds with the doctors, taking the patient charts (they were metal) with them.
Working double shifts = 16 hours+.
Charting in different colors (black for 7-3, blue for 3-11 and red for 11-7 shift).
Serial urines after TURPs. One urologist told patients that their urine had to look like Coors Light before they would be discharged. LOL!
Having to physically carry medication orders to the pharmacy so they could be filled and then go back to pharmacy to pick them up.
Physically carry specimens to the lab.
No computers. No "tube" (pneumatic tube) system. Everything was done manually!
I'm sure there are many more I have forgotten but it's fun going down memory lane. Thank goodness for technology and advancement.
Dextromethorphan codeine cough syrup kept on the floors for coughs.
Lab request forms in triplicate with carbon paper - looked like those old credit card slips.
When short clean bed linen, using the top sheet as the new bottom sheet thus only requiring one clean sheet to make a bed.
Bedspreads only changed once every two or three days unless soiled.
When floor was out of linens going down and out to the laundry (literally as they were most always located in another building from the main hospital), to get some.
When laundry was closed having to request clean linens from a supervisior (who had the keys to the clean linen room), and was made to feel one was requesting linens for the queen of England. Everything was counted and signed for.
Scrub dresses for OR, Post-OP and maybe some units, no scub pant and top sets for nurses.
Taking pulse manually (felt for 15sec, then multiply by 4).
Vital signs and I/O sheets at the foot of each patient's bed, attached to a clip board.
Hosptials with real windows that actually opened and closed in pt's rooms/floors.
Huge open wards lined on either side with beds and a the nurse's desk at the end smack dab in the center. Or, nurse's "station" at the head of the ward.
Lifting and blocking up the foot of a patient's bed into the Trendelenburg position for shock.
Wearing an isolation gown (clean of course), to keep warm when one did not have a sweater on cool evenings (or days once many hospitals installed AC).
Jell-o and ice cream everywhere, seemed to be the one thing always constantly in the fridge.
"Code-99" being called over intercom system.
Answering telephone with floor/unit and title (Six West, Nurse Johnson speaking).
Ward clerks for at least 8 full hours each day.
Not being able to say a patient was dead until declared by a physican. It was seen as making a medical diagnosis, so nurses could say "expired", instead.
Getting a run in your white nylons and not having a spare, then being told off for being "out of uniform".
Living in nurse's residences (was like a really big sorority house).
Telling women who had delivered stillborn and or an infant who died shortly after birth she could not see or hold the body. It was "forbidden".
Swaddling newborns so tightly they resembled little coccons.
dogoodthengo, your post has made me smile. not sure that it's a good thing though
lab request forms in triplicate with carbon paper - looked like those old credit card slips.
we have only just got rid of these
scrub dresses for or, post-op and maybe some units, no scub pant and top sets for nurses.
i remember scrub dresses, but we don't wear scrubs. we have uniforms white tunics and navy trousers
taking pulse manually (felt for 15sec, then multiply by 4).
still do this
vital signs and i/o sheets at the foot of each patient's bed, attached to a clip board.
still have these as well
hosptials with real windows that actually opened and closed in pt's rooms/floors.
have windows too
huge open wards lined on either side with beds and a the nurse's desk at the end smack dab in the center. or, nurse's "station" at the head of the ward.
yup, work on a 18 bedded nightingale wards in my hospital nurses desk in the middle and station at the top of the ward
answering telephone with floor/unit and title (six west, nurse johnson speaking).
have to do this, god forbid you answer the phone as anything else to our nurse director
ward clerks for at least 8 full hours each day.
i love our ward clerk who starts at 8am and finishes at 5pm
Specializes in med/surg; LTC.....LPN, RN, DON; TCU.
This was pre Sager and Hare splints were just coming out! It outlined the leg and you used bandages to support the leg and apply traction. You flipped the leather covered circle for the right or left leg.
Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
Just remembered -- white shoes= "Hollywood Sani-White" the chalky, watery stuff. They were still selling this with the original blue box design a few years ago, nurse on one side of the box, baby (for baby shoes) on the other.
Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
Oh, Lord. Those shoes! Where did you find that picture, DoGoodThenGo? I have mad love for anything vintage, but I'm so glad NurseMates shoes in reasonably cute styles were around by then. Yes, that's the Sani-White. If your shoes weren't so white anymore, it just streaked and looked awful. I graduated to Kiwi White Shoe-Creme. I love that stuff.
I remember in 1983 our team leader came to work wearing ==gasp!!== running shoes! She had to have a note from her orthopod exempting her from regular nurse shoes.
OMG! Those shoes and that polish! I do remember using Kiwi polish for my white nursing shoes. After putting so many coats of polish on those shoes, they would start to form little cracks. I was really happy when we could stop wearing them and wear running shoes.
I was elated when we could wear uniform pants to work instead of those white nurse dresses too!
The one thing I tried giving up and couldn't was the white support hose. Those things are a life saver for the legs when you have to be on your feet all the time and working on those hard floors.
Specializes in Med/Surge, Geriatrics(LTC), Pediatricts,.
OOOO! I forgot about those crank beds! My ankles still hurt at times just thinking about them! But you never had a problem with them like those newfangled electronic beds that the cords get tangled in your feet and pull out of socket and you have to crawl under the bed, in your white uniform, to plug back in, the red in the red, the yellow in the yellow... And "ward clerks" not having a complex of sorts when called a "clerk" vs a "secretary." I also remember writting my time down on a time sheet, rather than punching in on a time clock. It only took one time of getting a run in your stocking, and being chastised for being out of uniform, to make sure in that bag with "everything else" we carried, we had an extra pair of stockings, along with a tube of white shoe polish.
seasonednurse78
26 Posts
What a fun thread! Here are some I remember:
LVNs/LPNs working in ICU/CCU (I was one of them and it was my first job fresh out of school).
Post MI patients were not allowed ice or coffee.
Running "strips" on monitored cardiac patients in CCU and interpreting them manually. We measured the P, QRS, and T waves, looked for abnormalities, etc. and then documented them in the chart.
Taking patient's pulse manually, same with BP.
Not having to wear a nurse's cap while working in ICU. If you worked on the floor you had to wear it. Wearing all white (uniform, hose, shoes).
Metal bedpans and emesis basins. Peri lights, hand crank beds even in ICU/CCU.
Emptying foleys into a metal pitcher which had measurements on it.
All IVs were in glass bottles. We use to take the empty ones home and put plants in them (I think they were called terrariums - it's been so long!)
No IV pumps on the floor. All IVs had to be timed manually. ICU did have some pumps depending on the drug but they were few and far between.
Having to give patients a surgical prep the night before (enemas, shave surgical site, etc.)
Most surgical patients received their pre-op injection (Demerol, Vistaril and Atropine - all in one syringe) on the floor by the nurse.
Patients were checked into the hospital for tests and would be there for multiple days.
Developing a ganglion cyst on the wrist from having to shake down so many mercury thermometers!
The charge nurse would make rounds with the doctors, taking the patient charts (they were metal) with them.
Working double shifts = 16 hours+.
Charting in different colors (black for 7-3, blue for 3-11 and red for 11-7 shift).
Serial urines after TURPs. One urologist told patients that their urine had to look like Coors Light before they would be discharged. LOL!
Having to physically carry medication orders to the pharmacy so they could be filled and then go back to pharmacy to pick them up.
Physically carry specimens to the lab.
No computers. No "tube" (pneumatic tube) system. Everything was done manually!
I'm sure there are many more I have forgotten but it's fun going down memory lane. Thank goodness for technology and advancement.